


unsinkable

by onlyslightlyhyperbolic



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Drowning, Episode Tag, Gen, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Pre-Slash, sort of drowning anyhow (it's metaphorical but the imagery still exists)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-11-02 10:09:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20709950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlyslightlyhyperbolic/pseuds/onlyslightlyhyperbolic
Summary: "When you were sinking to the bottom of the sea, who do you imagine it was who dragged you onto that beach?"Flint sits in a tiny boat on a windless stretch of sea and wonders if whatever he will be left with in the end will have been worth it. Silver sits behind him, and is more help than he might think.





	unsinkable

**Author's Note:**

> this! is like half episode tag for 3x03, and half massively introspective character study for flint. mostly it's just me exposing my love and emotions for these bastards through a fuckton of heavy handed imagery.
> 
> the silverflint is preslash and requires squinting, but absolutely written with that intent. the mentions of miranda can be taken as platonic or romantic, whichever feels more true to you. c:
> 
> also it's been so fucking long since i finished a fic i legitimately forgot how to tag
> 
> enjoy the first thing i've finished in 5 years! [stuffs literally 6 dozen unfinished fics i have back into the drawer]

The squawk of seagulls overhead is all that belies life, here. Nothingness stretches for miles beyond every horizon, silence across the water and stillness in the air. It is a call of death, those birds; a harbinger of the shameful, inevitable thing that awaits them. And every man knows it.

What they face is a death that cannot be fought; it is a slow, unbearable thing that first makes men weak, desperate, hopeless. As inescapable a fate as any other, made all the harder to face knowing they survived the rage of the ocean just before this.

_ Starvation_.

As the sun crests the horizon each morning and the sails remain slack, the crew grows a little more hopeless. Not a soul among them truly believes they will survive this. Instead, they lament their abandonment by God, as it has been no more apparent than now, trapped in these doldrums, that by following the demon of _ Captain Flint _ they have blindly sailed straight into hell.

Within the Walrus' captain lies a different manner of damnation: grief. It consumes him, drags him down by the throat and keeps him under.

Flint is well accustomed to carrying a heart like lead in his chest; no stranger to sorrow laden blood in his veins. There are two people with whom he'd left pieces of his heart, and he's walked with the absence of one for a decade.

Being used to something, however, doesn't make it any easier to bear.

And having lost them _ both _ brings a sense of desolation so profound it chokes him. It muddles the rage within him; douses the flame of his revenge in sorrow deep as the sea, while at the same time it stokes the embers. 

But still he trudges forward, on tired legs with a tired heart. Flint himself is a ruin, indistinguishable from the towns sacked in the name of both the people he'd truly loved.

And he is dying, as much as any other man on his crew. Only difference is, this is the death of a man already buried, the final nail in the coffin that houses James McGraw. A man laid waste by circumstance; a burnt candle end dripping ceaselessly into the dark.

Each push of the waves against the ship rocks the tenets of a Naval lieutenant loose from their moorings, taking him to sea piece by piece. Left in their wake exists a pirate whose every step leaves a print of blood behind.

The quiet moments take their toll every day the sails remain still: the spaces between each breath, where his mind wanders to the ghost of a woman he'd loved in a manner beyond words. The moonlit hours of silence on the sea. The aching moments of sunlit torture, lips cracked like abandoned leather.

Every blink leaving behind the impression of a corpse. The spray of the sea on his face an echo of blood.

It is as inevitable as the death that awaits each of them, as a man slackens under a name he never desired, replaced by the monster he never believed himself to be.

It is a ship, a crew, utterly doomed.

Then, they spot the whale.

☠

The launch is silent, a testament to the tense and fraying trust between captain and quartermaster. Flint is content to revel in it. Silence has become as much a blessing as a curse, but it is welcomed all the same.

Silver is a man who chooses his words carefully. A man who has honed for himself an extremely valuable skill: the ability to move men with a story, to convince them of impossible things with only words.

Flint doesn't need whatever press of guilt he knows Silver would hold against him. All of his energy is spent on the motion of rowing, the mere act of propelling the small boat forward a feat unto itself. Sparing any of that to defend the crumbling walls upon which he is built against an onslaught of pointed words, however softly spoken, is beyond him.

So the silence is a comfort, such as it is. Within it lies the ability to pretend he isn't cobbled together from the scraps of two forfeited lives. Even as he dreams of Miranda, of a corpse who loves him still, and wants to save him. Even as he knows, deep in his gut, that on this path that is _ impossible;_ he can pretend, maybe believe a little harder.

Except. Flint is _ tired_. He is sick to death of trying to grasp what little else matters in his life and holding onto them as well as one can fist a handful of sand. Sick of helplessly fighting to make things better and losing _ everything _ along the way. He tried to fix Nassau once, and lost Thomas. He tried to fix it twice, make it a home, and it killed Miranda.

Now he's fighting for Nassau yet again, as though the third time will yield success. What else does he have to hold on to?

Flint sits in a tiny boat on a windless stretch of sea and wonders if whatever he will be left with in the end will have been worth it.

Because all of this _ cannot _ have been for nothing.

“I stole it from you.” Silver says, so suddenly it almost startles Flint, dragging him from the sullen reverie he'd once again fallen into.

"What?"

"The Urca gold," Silver replies, sounding both exhausted and a little smug, "I told you we were deceived about its having been recovered by the Spanish. Wasn't entirely true. _ You _ were deceived."

Flint remembers what he'd felt in that moment, standing before the man who had given a part of himself for the crew; the sudden unbearable swoop in his stomach at the knowledge he'd lost yet _ another _ thing. Something he'd been working towards for so very long. Remembers the crawl of something desperate in his throat, something that might have been a growl, or maybe a sob, entirely composed of loss. The loss of the gold, of the pardons, of the _ home _ he'd built within Miranda.

Remembers the look of regret on Silver's face, tempered by pain but earnest. Remembers hearing _ a falsehood he perpetuated himself _ and feeling disbelief flood him for one horrible second. Wondering how the _ fuck _ someone had swindled that past him.

Flint remembers being grateful that Silver had informed him of this.

A familiar, well-worn rage rises in his blood, sits on his tongue like poison. It traps his words as effectively as any gag, which is just as well. Silver's clearly not finished speaking.

"I built the lie. Enlisted the scouts, arranged the sale of the information to Captain Rackham. I conceived it all." Silver continues, heedless of the tide of anger sweeping through Flint's veins; whitecapped suffering an inexorable push and pull of self control.

The tension in Flint's spine coils tighter, no slack and no give, as he listens to his quartermaster speak his piece. Speak of his _ betrayal_, like men haven't died over less in this path of hopeless destruction. Speak of it with pride; without apology; without fear. And it draws Flint in, even as his anger rakes his bones. He listens.

Listens as Silver says, "You know, I've had my fill of hearing you go on about this crew being too weak to keep up with you."

Listens to the words, "some of them may be weaker than you, some of them may be less smart, but don't you for a second believe I fit that description," and thinks of a little shit who burned a stolen page to keep himself alive. 

Eyes on the horizon ahead, as empty as it has been for the past twenty two days, Flint hears, "Whatever happens out here, one thing is certain: you _ will _ account for me."

And recognizes it for the threat it is.

"Why are you telling me all this?" Flint asks, curious despite himself. Despite the anger that licks across his exhausted bones and ignites, Flint himself a powder keg housed in a pile of tinder.

"So you can decide to fight me," comes the answer, almost cruel in its simplicity. "Maybe kill me, and figure out a way of hauling yourself back to that ship alone. Or, acknowledge the fact that you and I would be a _ hell _ of a lot better off as partners than as rivals."

Silver's words still carry threats, for all that they're cloaked as a choice. Something tense sits beneath them in the water, a tangible precipice from which the fall is unknowable. Within the burgeoning squall of Flint's anger bursts a sudden flash of approval, even if he'd be loathe to admit it. Buried somewhere at the heart of him is a prideful thing that absolutely roils at the fact Silver had duped him. The part of him that _ must _ be the most clever; the smartest man among them all.

_ Yet you're angry about it because it didn't happen your way. _ Silver had spoken like he'd seen right through him: past the smoke and anger, directly to the flawed man beneath. And he'd been _ right_, damn it.

"You conceived all of this? The cover story, the end game on the jetty? Waiting for the scouts to return?"

"Yes."

"What did you do with your share?" Flint then asks. Truthfully, he's surprised Silver is even around to have this conversation with in the first place. Surely he should be somewhere far, far away with enough money to never again worry about his next meal for several lifetimes. So it must follow that there is something else afoot.

"I gave up my claim to it." Silver says, surprising Flint further. _ That _ is not what he'd been expecting. Perhaps that Silver had squirrelled it away somewhere, safe for the time being. That he stole it and then simply _ gave it up _ sets Flint's teeth on edge.

Silver acts as a variable that lacks a constant; something proven time and time again to be impossible to account for. They are, in that regard, uncomfortably alike.

An hour ago Flint might have bet money that Silver would betray him yet again if a chance for unimaginable profit presented itself. Losing a leg in defense of a crew's survival, while noble, doesn't preclude money from swaying a man's loyalty; all of mankind is greedy for _ something_, and for most that thing is coin. Flint has absolutely counted Silver among those men, given all the evidence at hand.

"Why did you do that?" Flint asks.

"Because I saw no way to hold it and remain a part of this crew." Silver says, a little softer yet edged with something defensive. Not, Flint assumes, from the threat that his own existence provides in this moment, but because Silver believes in it and will not see it challenged.

To learn he'd sided with the crew over a staggering percentage of the Urca gold is… enlightening, to say the least. It intrigues Flint more than he’d care to admit, the _why_ of it almost intoxicating in its mystery.

"And without these men, all I am is an invalid," Silver continues, answering an unasked question but creating a new one: he says it with a hint of defeat, almost as if the admission costs him something to voice it aloud. As though saying it makes it true.

Thing is, Flint understands at least part of it. It's a heady feeling, knowing you matter beyond a shadow of doubt; that you mean something to someone. That you are made important to people, be it due to love or power or whatever it is you can offer. And it's terrifying, feeling you aren't worthy of it. That at any moment they may decide you aren't up to snuff.

It makes sense, suddenly, that Silver hadn't truly betrayed them in quite some time.

_ Might you consider for a fucking moment that your distrust of me is completely unwarranted_? Silver had said, knife to his throat inside a foreign warship, utterly beyond the fucking irony of that statement. Every bit of distrust had, in fact, been earned. It's just that _ trust _ had been earned just as thoroughly, when it came down to it. If he's honest with himself, he's known that since that day in the warship cabin, looking at their new quartermaster and marvelling for a moment how _ far _this man had come.

Like with everything else, it would be a gamble as to whether that trust is warranted.

And if Flint did _ anything _ with reckless abandon, it was gamble on outcomes that were highly fucking unlikely but most liable to work in his favor. It is _ abundantly _ clear that John Silver, for good or for ill, is a force to be reckoned with and a gamble worth taking.

Flint, too, exists as a tempest, violent and unpredictable. Within his wake is left suffering and ruin. Even he himself is not free from it, a chaos of hurt and broken things piled together within him.

But ahead lies an empire who has never known the tumultuous nature of a storm she cannot weather. An empire who is _ long _ overdue for a reckoning.

Flint imagines, for a bright and curious moment, what manner of destruction the two of them could deliver to her if united. If as one their forces would become unstoppable, twin nightmares against the world.

He thinks suddenly of Thomas, and is swallowed briefly by the wave of grief that crashes over him. Thinks of a different time, a different man, but the same _ feeling_. A feeling of invincibility, of being part of an inexorable tide of change. The beginning of an inevitable erosion of structures and beliefs arrogantly assumed to be permanent, impenetrable.

It feels a hell of a lot like hope.

Flint tucks his anger back inside himself alongside every other jagged, raw emotion he's become, and decides. This is the way forward, now. With weary arms he puts the oars back into the water in wordless answer, and again begins to row.

☠

"What happened out there?" Billy asks, a conspiratorial whisper gone faintly soft with curiosity. 

All across the deck the crew is scattered, slumped wherever they like as they eat. Relief hangs in the air, the immediacy of death forestalled for a little while longer. The shark is somehow both the best and worst thing many of them have eaten, but it sits heavy in their stomachs all the same. A welcome weight but something their bodies have become nearly unused to. Eel paste and meager rations do not do much, in the end.

Silver cannot seem to take his eyes off their captain, settled in a hammock and eating his portion of meat. There seems to be something a little less oppressive about his shoulders; some manner of quietness, like maybe one of the demons with which he'd been struggling has settled.

"Progress," he murmurs in reply, because that's really what it was, wasn't it? A step in a new direction. Where it will lead them is anyone's guess, but Silver certainly doesn't imagine it will be an easy road. Nothing leading up to this point has been anything short of a nightmare, and now that he's tethered himself to the very storm he'd sought to avoid...

There are choppy waters ahead, that much is certain.

"How can you know for sure?" Billy asks, his disbelief kept no secret by his tone of voice.

Silver smiles, the barest ghost of a thing, and thinks back to the moment he'd palmed a grappling iron and prepared to fight for his life. A moment which coalesced not into a battle but instead a reprieve. Forgiveness, almost.

"Because I'm still alive, I suppose."

And that will have to be enough, for now.

☠

Somewhere in the depths of sorrow, a man is sinking. It is dark, that deep; desolate and silent. Above him is a distant light, faded and beyond his grasp, yet still he reaches for it. Grief is the current that has swept him below and trapped him there, mired within it with no hope of resurfacing.

Darkness closes over him, suffocating, and he does not fight it; he is _ tired_, and has nothing left to return to. No home. No hope. Nothing but weary bones and a heart that can't take much more of this.

More anchor than man, he lets himself sink. Acceptance washes over him, a stillness that mirrors the sails of the ship he left above. A chill that sweeps from toes to fingertips, and steals the last of his breath. It bubbles to the surface, a final trail of hope at the end of which rests a broken man.

Ten years of fighting, no rest and no winning and nothing to fucking show for it, has exhausted every last bit of him. Every bit he has left. All the pieces of him he'd already lost, and the people within whom those pieces resided, are little more than an empty ache.

It would be better, surely, to just give in and let himself be reunited. To let the darkness have him, once and for all, instead of losing ground inch by inch each time his back is turned.

_ To rest, at last; to have his peace_.

But the darkness parts, if only for a moment, allowing abstract rays of hope to shine upon a man who utterly lacks it. Words drift down, mere whispers in the dark, yet they echo around him. A haunting of the dying, by both living and dead; he cannot help but listen.

_ You and I would be a hell of a lot better off as partners than as rivals_, he hears, a reverberation of a demand coming back like a plea; _ you will account for me,_ the voice says, and it stirs something in the shape of a man he might have once been, somehow.

_ Perhaps my job is to make certain you know what you’re getting into_, it almost sounds like, the strange echo of a conversation a decade past and nearly forgotten. A double portrait of a moment long ago, words spoken with the same desire to be _ heard_. They say _ do not dismiss me _but with different words, nothing alike yet at the same time nearly identical.

A reminder, really, of a man nearly lost to the sea. Of _ James McGraw_, abandoned by both himself and the world alike. Tossed about by a squall of loss and suffering, dragged below by the weight of grief; weak and crumbling but somehow still _ alive_.

Somewhere in the depths of sorrow, a man is sinking. It is dark, that deep; desolate and silent. Above him is a distant light, faded and beyond his grasp, yet still he reaches for the surface.

This time the light reaches back, and everything shimmers; glitters like sunlight on the water.

Like _ silver_.

**Author's Note:**

> [throws confetti]


End file.
